Everton sack Silva after dropping into bottom three

Everton sacked manager Marco Silva after 18 months in charge at Goodison Park on Thursday after a 5-2 thrashing by Liverpool saw the club fall into the Premier League relegation zone.

"Everton Football Club can confirm that manager Marco Silva has left the Club," Everton said in a statement.

"Duncan Ferguson has taken temporary charge of the first team and will manage the side for the game against Chelsea on Saturday." David Moyes has been linked with a return to Goodison as Silva's successor as a stop-gap until the end of the season.

A run of eight defeats in 11 games sealed Silva's fate after the club assembled a squad that was expected to challenge for European qualification at the other end of the table.

Everton fans called for the Portuguese to go after a 2-0 home defeat to Norwich on November 23.

He was handed a reprieve and an improved performance despite conceding a late winner to Leicester in a 2-1 defeat last weekend saw him limp into the Merseyside derby.

However, that was the final straw as the Blues conceded five times to Liverpool for the first time since 1982.

Silva becomes the fourth Premier League manager to be sacked in little over two weeks after Tottenham, Arsenal and Watford also fired Mauricio Pochettino, Unai Emery and Quique Sanchez Flores respectively.

The former Hull and Watford boss becomes the fourth managerial casualty since Farhad Moshiri took charge of Everton in 2016 after Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman and Sam Allardyce.

Silva was heavily backed in the transfer market with over ?100 million ($130 million) spent on the likes Richarlison, Lucas Digne, Andre Gomes, Yeray Mina, Moise Kean and Alex Iwobi over the past two summers.

An eighth place finish last season was seen as scant return on that investment and things went from bad to worse this season until Moshiri felt the need to bite the bullet once more.